Attend the PROFINET Session at ARC (Virtually, in the Past)
loading… Even though you may not have been one of the hundred in-person attendees at the PROFINET session at the ARC Forum, you can see all the presentations and the panel discussion right here. (The short version appeared in PROFInews North American Edition 62: PROFINET at the ARC Forum.) Michael Bryant hosted the session which…
Around the World in 50 Competence Centers
loading… PI (PROFIBUS and PROFINET International) has created a unique institution: the PI Competence Center (PICC). There are 50 of these around the world. And their existence and availability are reasons that PROFINET is a truly global phenomenon. The PICCs are there to provide support for the PROFINET and PROFIBUS networks. A user facing network…
PROFINET at the ARC Forum
loading… One hundred attendees of the ARC Forum in Orlando stayed for the last morning’s sessions on PROFINET (despite weather-inflicted travel woes). The session expanded on ARC’s theme of the information driven enterprise by showing how PROFINET enables the information driven enterprise. Three PI North America Board members described their focus on PROFINET. They were…
PROFINET Classes, Quantitatively Speaking
loading… We finished our second free PROFINET one-day training class on February 18 in Birmingham. The first one was earlier in February in San Diego (see PROFINET – Not Pregnant Enough in San Diego). I posted some results from the course evaluations in San Diego, but those were qualitative. With two classes done, I decided…
Safety Discussion
loading… If you are not following some of the discussion groups on LinkedIn, you are missing out on some excellent advice. One in the Automation & Control Engineering group posed the question “Is Modbus suitable for emergency shutdown?” The short answer is no, of course not. But the discussion was interesting anyway. Naturally the topic…
PROFINET – Not Pregnant Enough in San Diego
loading… Last week marked the kickoff of our 2014 one-day training classes with the San Diego class. Everything went pretty smoothly considering we have a new approach this year. We jump right into the “How do I” sections after a short introduction. Some of those sections include a behind the scenes look at how PROFINET…
Wireless – It’s More Prevalent than You Thought
loading… PROFINET can be connected wirelessly as easily as it can be connected with wires. Of the four kinds of wireless (see previous post), this post is about wireless in discrete automation. Moreover, it’s about places where wireless has already been used. Here are a half dozen application stories that rely on wireless: Fori Automation…
Two Points for Safety
loading… Two points for safety – not two points for A safety. The latter might be a Super Bowl prognostication. (It’s not. But I always thought of safeties in American football as rare, but according to Wikipedia: since 1932, a safety has occurred about once a week.) The former (and the blog post title) is…
Happy Birthday to Us
loading… PI North America is celebrating our 20th year. Founded in 1994 as PROFIBUS Trade Organization we shortened our name to PTO when PROFINET came along. Then a couple years ago we changed our name to PI North America to more closely identify with our sister organizations around the world. PI is the international organization…
PROFINET for Network Geeks (and Those Who Want to Be)
loading… Networks are usually represented by a seven-layer model, the ISO/OSI Reference Model. In the Ethernet world, the seven layers collapse to four. PROFINET uses all four, but not all the time. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves; let’s start at the beginning: the seven layer model. Here’s the seven-layer model with the layers labeled…